Donald Trump’s favorite network isn’t helping his defense of his Great American State Fair.
Trump, 80, has defended the opening weekend of The Great American State Fair, put on by his event organization Freedom 250, arguing that the sparsely attended event was actually jam-packed.
But on Monday afternoon, Fox News inadvertently undermined those claims. The Murdoch-owned network was hosting two of Trump’s appointees and loyalists, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, with the fairgrounds visible behind them.
From there, the images of deserted fairgrounds spoke for themselves.
A representative from Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Burgum was fawning over the president, hailing him as a “changemaker” America is lucky to have presiding over its 250th birthday.
“We had Washington at the first [birthday] we had [Theorodre Roosevelt] at the 125, and we’ve got President Trump at the 250,” he said. “All three of them remarkable change makers moving our country forward.”
Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was more focused on spreading false claims about Obamacare. But even as he did so, the empty fields behind him were even more eye-catching.
The president’s fair, meanwhile, has struggled to get off the ground since opening Wednesday. Power outages on the first day knocked out the food hall, melting ice cream, while generator problems briefly shut down the Ferris wheel.
Several performers also pulled out before the event. Vanilla Ice, who did not join the exodus of artists canceling their shows, ultimately had his own performance at the fair canceled anyway because of bad weather that never materialized.
The problems kept coming. Extreme heat and rain forced organizers to temporarily close the fair Sunday afternoon. When they announced the shutdown on a digital billboard, organizers urged attendees to check for updates on the social media channels of “Freeedom 250”—misspelling the organization’s name with an extra E—prompting a fresh wave of online ridicule.
Trump, meanwhile, has been forced to contend with fairgoers he appears to have deemed ungrateful.
“Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?” he wrote in a 6:27 a.m. Truth Social post.
He added: “Ask yourself this simple question, ‘DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?’ THE ANSWER IS NO!”
